A CALTHORPE CAR

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 90, 13 October 1923, Page 8

A CALTHORPE CAR

SUCCESSFUL CLAIM AGAINST

VENDORS.

The sale of a Calthorpe motor-car by the Combined Buyers, Ltd., to Lionel John Taylor was recently the subject of litigation before Mr. Justice Salmond, Taylor proceeding against the company for rescission of the contract or damages on the ground of fraudulent misrepresention, or, alternatively, on <".e ground of breach of the implied statutory conditions of merchantable quality and of reasonable fitness for the purpose for which the car was bought. This morning Mr. Justice Salmond delivered his reserved decision.

At the close of the trial, said his Honour, he indicated his opinion that the charge of fraud had not been maintained. The car was genuinely a new car, and was not, as alleged by the plaintiff, fraudulently represented as a new one. He further expressed the opinion that the car shortly after delivery to the plaintiff developed defects of such a nature as not to be explicable on the supposition of misuse by the plaintiff, but to indicate that the car was substantially defective in its workmanship when sold by the defendant company. He had reserved judgment, however, in order to consider certain defences in point of law, raised by the defendant company in respect of the cause of action, based on alleged breach of the implied conditions as to fitness and merchantable quality. After a lengthy, review of the law, his Honour said that he found that in addition to the breach of the condition of fitness there had been a concurrent breach of the implied condition of merchantable quality. His Honour held that the plaintiff was not entitled to rescission of the contract, but was entitled to damages, the amount of which ho had not determined' in order to give the parties an opportunity of coming to some arrangement on the question.

At the hearing,. Mr. N. A. Foden ap pared for the plaintiff, and Mr. P. B Cooke for the defendant company.